


Angels and Devils

by luoup (ravenic)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men: Age of Apocalypse (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, angel does not die, xm:a re-ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenic/pseuds/luoup
Summary: Kurt met an angel once.  He destroyed his wings and left him to burn, so when the angel reappears in a plane crashing earthwards with no way out, he isn't going to let it happen again.A fix-it for the jet scene.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so i just saw logan and it made me remember that i’d written this right after watching x-men: age of apocalypse - and then never actually posted it. so here you go, yet another fix-it because i actually thought this was what was going to happen and was very displeased pleased when it did not. 
> 
> uncreative title is uncreative, but at this point i don't care. i'm tired and this is an old fic, maybe something better will come to me later.

Everything was happening so fast. Kurt’s body trembled from the effort of teleporting so many times so quickly, but a searing rosy light and the beeping of the alarms startled him out of his exhaustion.

There was a ripping sound, and suddenly the Angel was there, leaping into the jet from the hole his ally had torn in the roof. He spread his new, nightmarish wings, only steel and razor edges where there had once been smooth white feathers (Kurt’s fault, he knew he was the reason the Angel had changed), feathers sliding over one another with a hair-raising metallic sound, ready to cut and kill.

Five people in the jet. The most he had ever taken at once had been two, and that had just been Jean and Scott. Everyone was shouting, the Angel advancing on them with death on his newly-marked face, and there was nothing for Kurt to do but shout for them to hold on, pray, and bamf.

Or try. Agent McTaggert was squeezing his tail tightly, aching in the bones where the Angel had pulled on it earlier. Beast’s hand was larger, not so tight but with sharp claws, and still trying to pilot with his other hand. Scott’s fingers were digging into Kurt’s shoulder, Jean pressed against his other, shouting at him to _go go go,_ as if he didn’t know that he was staring an Angel of Death in the face. Professor Xavier was motionless, Kurt’s demonic hands blue and shaking as he held on to the telepath.

_bamf bamf bamf our Father who art in Heaven we need to go I pray the Lord my soul to keep where where anywhere just BAMF_

A feeling like sparks on his skin; he had never carried this many people through the bamf before, it felt like dragging through thick mud instead of the sharp clear flash that it usually was.

They dropped hard onto the floor of the empty house, and the sudden loss of all the hands holding tightly to him hit Kurt just as hard as the energy drain of such a difficult bamf, his vision spinning and skin numb.

Jean caught him, her body strong and warm even as her hands trembled. “It’s okay, we all made it, we’re all okay,” she mumbled, half to him and half to herself.   
The teleportations had drained him. Kurt wasn’t even sure he could stand. It was so tempting to just close his eyes and sink into the abyss he could feel pulling in his mind, but he couldn’t. Not yet. There was something else left to do. A flash of feathers. Curly blonde hair, smooth white skin. The harsh lights casting a halo behind him as he stood on the bars crisscrossing the cage.

The Angel.

For a devil’s spawn, Kurt was deeply religious, something that always seemed to confuse those around him. They never understood, but it was a vital part of him.   
A match made in Hell, or maybe Heaven, who knew. The Catholic devil and the Angel working as an agent of the Apocalypse. Tired he might be, but Kurt would not leave an Angel to die a fiery death in a falling steel cage. He had taken the Angel’s wings once already; he could not let it happen again.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Jean and the others, and it was only after he had already bamfed, leaving Jean holding nothing but an armful of smoke, that he realized he couldn’t tell if it had been in English or German. His mind dragged, exhaustion drawing at his bones so hard he wondered briefly if it could slow his teleportation.   
And then a pop, and smoke not only from him, and he was back in the jet, the very air itself screaming as the thing hurtled towards the earth.

The Angel was pressed against the back of the compartment, hardly able to move from the force of the ship’s speed. His wings were bent and damaged from being thrown around the small room, unable to get out of the small hole his partner had carved in the ceiling. He stared at Kurt, the instinctive hatred layered with confusion but mostly smothered in life-threatening terror.

 _No time._ Kurt knew he wouldn’t last much longer, wasn’t even fully confident that he could make it through one last bamf, and there were only bare seconds before the jet smashed into the hard sand below. It was now or never.

He reached out. A devil’s hand, blue and furred and patterned with angel marks, atonement for his own existence, stretching out towards an Angel of Hell itself in hopes of salvation for them both.

The Angel looked – angry? Confused? Hopeful? There was no time for this.

“Engel!” _Wrong language. Doesn’t matter; if not now, we both die._ “Take my hand!”

No more hesitation. The Angel knew just as well as he did that they were moments away from a burning death, and there would be no rising from those ashes. He reached, and his smooth, perfect hand clasped tightly to Kurt’s blue, three-fingered one.

Kurt sometimes dreamed that he could feel the heat of the explosion as the plane crashed, in the same instant that, with the last of his strength, he bamfed himself and the Angel away.

* * *

There was enough left in his mind and body to see that they did in fact made it back to the room with the other X-Men (that was what Mystique had called them, right? X-Men. X-Men versus the end of the world, and here he was, just a circus freak dragged along for the ride. Plus angels.), and then he was gone. His last thought was _I hope they don’t kill the Angel, I really did just save his life,_ before there was darkness.

He woke, much later, jerking to startled alertness before being settled by Jean and Mystique. They were all alive. Somehow, this little ragtag bunch of mutants – half of whom weren’t even fully grown, much less trained –had beaten the god of all mutants. Later, he would learn it was mostly Jean – the Phoenix – but also the team as a whole, together. Psylocke had vanished – Mystique said she was a lone wolf at heart, dangerous and deadly but not worth hunting down right now – but Magneto was back with them, and Storm had turned the moment she saw Mystique’s blue-rippled skin, and the Angel… well. Angel was not their enemy.

With En Saabah Nur gone, his Horseman of War had lost much of his rage. He knew that he would have died and been forgotten by his commander in a heartbeat, had not the blue boy from Berlin reappeared and rescued him from the crashing plane. He was not exactly thankful, but he knew credit when it was due. The Incredible Nightcrawler had ruined his life, burned his wing, but now he had saved his life.

Despite all they had done, the man who should have become En Saabah Nur’s next body, a man named Charles or Professor Xavier, had offered a home to Storm and Angel. They had been Horsemen, true – Famine and War, dangerous and deadly and willing to end the world – but they were also children. They were also Ororo, thief and street rat with interesting links to weather and loyalty to die for; and Warren, former rich boy and cage fighter, angelic white wings replaced with razorblade steel but maybe someday able to heal back to their true form.

Against all the odds, they had all survived. Beast’s throat was burned raw from Psylocke’s whip, Quicksilver’s leg would take time to heal, Cyclops had not yet allowed the truth of his brother’s death to sink in, Jean was Phoenix, with all the good and bad that came with that, Storm had lost everything twice over but knew deep within that plants always grew back even after the worst storms, Mystique had not yet told her truth to Nighcrawler, just as Quicksilver would not say his words to Magneto, Nightcrawler himself could still barely stand, and Angel’s wings were heavy metal instead of hollow bones and snowy feathers, and his world was different now.

But for the first time in a long time, he wanted to go with these people. Nightcrawler had almost destroyed his life when he had burned his wings, that night in the cage, but it was true – he had not wanted to fight. This Devil could be dangerous, but he had a heart of gold, even Warren could see that.

For the first time, the Angel and the Devil could be on the same side. Now, they did not have to meet on opposite sides of a cage, on different sides in a war that would decide the future of the whole world. For the first time, they could meet as Warren and Kurt. A fierce angel and a kind devil, but beneath that, two teenagers who, despite having met in situations of combat, could perhaps one day grow to become friends.

Kurt had met an angel in a cage match in Berlin. Tried to flee, failed, saw the guns and burned the angel’s wings when he knew there was no other choice. Then he had encountered him again in Cairo, scorched feathers replaced with deadly metal and war in his eyes. But despite it all, he couldn’t leave the Angel to burn. He had never bamfed five people at once, and it had drained him, but despite the exhaustion he had known that he had to return. He had harmed an angel once, he could not allow it to happen again.

The Angel’s name was Warren. His wings were still metal, but now they had a chance to heal over and return to their true nature. He was still violent, but now he had a chance to learn kindness. The Apocalypse had ended and they were all alive, and now, perhaps, the angel and the devil could be friends instead of enemies. Relationships forged on the battlefield can be the closest of all, and despite their history, they can learn and grow anew. Now, they didn’t have to always be Angel and Nightcrawler. They could be Warren and Kurt, and grow to know each other that way, as friends. Feathers and smoke would always be part of them, but it didn’t have to be everything.

Kurt destroyed Warren’s life, but he saved it, too. Now, the future is different from the one that could have happened (as it always is), and their lives can change as well.

Angels and devils don’t always have to be enemies, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> ps havok ain't dead either


End file.
